


Statement of Jonathan Sims, Regarding his Gender

by TheVioletSunflower



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Mechanisms are Jons college band, Trans Jon, just pure tooth-rotting fluff, skirt jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23662654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVioletSunflower/pseuds/TheVioletSunflower
Summary: Martin makes a discovery that prompts Jon to tell him a secret from his past.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 19
Kudos: 485
Collections: tma fics





	Statement of Jonathan Sims, Regarding his Gender

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for mentions of transphobia and fear of transphobic violence

“I couldn’t find any popcorn but I grabbed a bowl of pret-“ Jon froze where he was. Martin was looking through his closet. “What are you doing in there?”

“Oh! Um. I was just looking for a blanket. Thought it might be nice to get cozy for the movie.”

“Blankets are in the other closet. Please don’t look through my closets.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He closed the door and Jon gave a sigh of relief. He had only been in there a few minutes. He probably hadn’t even seen- “Is this about the skirt?” Shit.

He gave a nervous laugh. “Skirt? What skirt?”

“Jon, it’s fine. I’m not threatened you kept some of Georgie’s stuff. I have a box of things from my exes too. I don’t mind. Really.”

Martin thought the skirt was Georgie’s. He had an out. Pretend it was all a sentimental memento of his ex and they could move on and have a nice movie night and pretend this never happened.

Only- This was Martin. Martin wouldn’t mind. And if he did it was best to know now. He deserved the truth.

“The skirt doesn’t belong to Georgie. It’s mine. From before.”

Martin frowned. “Before? Before what?”

He took a deep breath. “Before… I transitioned.”

A moment of silence while Martin processed this. Then: “Oh! Oh. Um. Right.”

“Yeah.”

There was another long pause.

Martin was the first to break it. “It’s all right Jon. It doesn’t bother me if that’s what you’re afraid of. And we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Ever, if you like.”

God that was a tempting offer. But no. Martin deserved better.

He shook his head. “No. I want to tell you about it. We’re dating. That means I have to choose to be vulnerable with you. Even when it’s hard.”

Martin nodded seriously. “Okay. Come on. This will be easier if we’re comfortable.” Jon watched in a half-daze as Martin took the pretzels out of his hands and placed them on the coffee table. Then he sat on the couch and patted the seat beside him. Once Jon had sat down and Martin was satisfied he was comfortable, he gave him a serious look. “All right. Tell me about it.”

“Are you asking for my Statement?”

“Would that make it easier?”

Jon opened his mouth to explain he’d been trying to make a joke to lighten the mood, but then he shut it again. The familiar format may, in fact, help. He sighed. “Yeah. Yeah I think it might.”

“Okay. Then go ahead. Whenever you’re ready.”

He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Statement of Jonathan Sims, The Archivist, regarding… his gender. Statement given in person, April 15, 2020. Statement begins.”

—

I was raised by my grandmother. She wasn’t the most expressive woman. Didn’t talk to me much. She certainly wasn’t into the idea of giving a child the sex talk. I didn’t even get the “your body is changing” talk. When I got my first period, I cried for an hour because I thought I was dying.

All this to say by the time I got to college, I was what you might call thoroughly repressed. I hadn’t really thought about sex or gender at all. I was vaguely aware of the fact that queer people existed. I’d encountered them a couple times in books. But the idea of questioning that I was anything besides a heterosexual girl never even occurred to me. Until I met Georgie.

Georgie was completely different from anybody I’d met before. She had this confidence I couldn’t dream of, and she could talk to people in ways I never could. God knows why she wanted to hang around with me, but for some reason she decided I was worth being her friend. She invited me to parties, introduced me to people, took me to events I’d never have heard of.

It was at one of those parties that she kissed me the first time. I’d never been kissed before. It was wetter than I thought it would be. But it was also nice. I tried to tell her I was straight so she shouldn’t kiss me. She asked if I’d liked it. When I told her I did, she laughed and said then I wasn’t straight and it was fine, and she kissed me again.

It took me a bit to process that I was a lesbian now, but eventually I settled into it. It helped that Georgie had introduced me to all her friends, who were about the gayest group of people you could get.

Then those friends decided they wanted to start a band, and they asked me to join. We were called The Mechanisms. We performed in character as a group of immortal space pirates traveling the stars and having adventures. And when we were designing our characters, I decided to make mine a man. Just for fun. Jonny DeVille. Captain of the ship.

I loved it. Every time I went on stage, I got this happy rush that would carry me through the performance, the parties afterward, right up until I got back to the dressing room.

And then I’d crash. I’d take off the costume, put on my normal clothes, and go back to my normal life, and I’d feel awful for a few hours to a couple days afterward. And I’d count down the days until our next performance.

Eventually Georgie noticed. We were properly dating by then, and she had to deal with me moping about after every show. She asked me about it, and I admitted how good performing made me feel. That I didn’t want to go back to my life at the end of the night. She asked me if it was the performing, the music, or the recognition from fans that I liked. Until she asked I hadn’t thought to wonder why I felt the way I felt when I performed. What it was that gave me that happy rush. And when I thought about it, I realized that while I did love performing and being the centre of attention in a safe way slightly removed from my life, that wasn’t what made me so happy on stage. I was happy because I liked being Jonny DeVille. I liked how people looked at me when I was Jonny. I liked how I looked at myself. I felt more like me when I was being Jonny than I did when I was being me.

It took me a long time to work that all out, and it was a hard and emotional process to get there. But Georgie was wonderful through it all. She was the one who decided we should experiment. Figure out what elements I liked about being in character. We started small. Wearing bits of the costume around the house. Having her call me Jonny when we were alone. Trying to act more like the persona I put on on stage. See if we could isolate the variables to know what it was that made me feel good.

Admitting that it was being a man that I liked the most is one of the scariest things I’ve done in my life. I didn’t have the words to explain it. I just knew that hearing Georgie call me Jonny felt right in a way that her using my other name didn’t. I cried when I told her I didn’t want to be a girl any more.

And so began the next phase of the experiments. I bought new clothes. I went to coffee shops and told them my name was Jonny so they would call it out when my drink was ready. Georgie started calling me her boyfriend, at first when we were alone, then with other people. She bought me a binder for my birthday and I started wearing it when I left the house.

Eventually I worked up to spending a whole week thinking of myself as Jonny all the time. Using that name to introduce myself. Telling our friends to call me that. Only wearing my new clothes. And it felt good. It was the best I’d felt in a long time.

Georgie said she didn’t mind me being a man, but I knew she did. She was a lesbian. I was not a woman. Sometimes it’s just that simple. So I broke it off. We stayed friends for a long time after, but slowly we drifted apart with the years.

After college, I shortened Jonny to just Jon, and I started on hormones and got all my surgeries. By the time I got a job at the Institute, I passed well enough that nobody knew unless I decided to tell them. And you were really the only person I thought had business knowing. So now, here we are.

—

“Statement ends.” He finally tore his eyes away from the pretzels where he had been staring while telling his story, forcing himself to look at Martin to see his reaction.

Martin was giving him a gentle smile. “Thank you for sharing that, Jon. I’m honoured that you felt comfortable enough to do it.”

“Yeah. Well. You’re my boyfriend right?”

“Right.”

Jon felt a surge of relief. Martin knew everything and he still wanted to be together. It would be okay. 

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah. Of course. Anything.”

“If you’ve… fully transitioned now, and you’re living full time as a man, why do you still have the skirt? Why not sell it or give it away or something?”

Oh. Right. Martin knew  almost everything. He swallowed hard. “I still wear it sometimes. I… like how it looks. And the way it moves when I walk.”

“Oh. That makes sense. Sorry. I just… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in it is all.”

“I only wear it around the house. When nobody’s around. When other people see it, it… doesn’t go well.”

Martin was silent, letting him take his time collecting himself before he went on.

“People see a man in a skirt, they make comments. Bad comments. I… don’t feel safe. Outside. And then the people who know I’m trans see it and they think I was just faking the whole time and I’m actually just a woman pretending to be a man. And I just-“ He took a shaky breath. “I’m a man, Martin. A real man. And I like the skirt, but I’m still a man.”

Martin took his hand. “I know you are Jon. And you’re a wonderful man. I’m so happy I get to date a man as good as you.”

That pushed him over the edge. The tears that had been pressing at his eyes spilled out with a loud sob.

Martin pulled him into a tight hug and held him close, whispering assurances as he cried into his shirt. After a long while, Jon got himself back under control. He took a few deep breaths, but he didn’t pull out of the hug.

“Jon?”

“Mm.”

“If you ever want to wear the skirt around me, I would be okay with that. Or anything else that’s traditionally feminine. I promise I won’t make threatening comments or think you’re faking or anything like that.”

Jon pulled back just enough to see Martin’s face. “Really? You mean it?”

“Of course. In fact, I’d love to see it. It’s a nice skirt. I’m sure it looks great on you.”

He blushed and hid his face in Martin’s shirt again. “Not tonight.”

“Okay. Not tonight.”

They never did get to the movie. They held each other and talked and laughed and cried and after a while Martin yawned and said it was time he started home and Jon told him no he should stay the night and Martin smiled and accepted the offer. And as Jon lay in bed watching the slow rise and fall of his boyfriend’s breath in the bed beside him, he thought this was the happiest he’d been in years.


End file.
